And you thought it was a long time til Christmas

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Quite staggering. Astronomers have spotted four galaxies 'merging'. It all sounds exciting, but it's the scale of the 'event' that blows my mind. Here we are trying to survive out three score years and ten on this planet and the scientists come along and tell us about the galaxy merger. The thing is that the merger was happening five BILLION YEARS ago. It's just that the light from the event is only just now starting to reach us. And all that's on top of the fact that each galaxy itself contains billions of stars (like the Sun) and that there are billions of galaxies all around us. I think I need a lie down....

A biblical quote springs to mind: "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have established [I am constrained to ask]; What is man, that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit [care for] him?” (Psalm 8:v3-4).

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